Mom's Final Visit
After the great success that was my father's solo visit (see here, for details), it was decided that eventually my mom should have her turn to hang out with me, and thus plans were set in motion. She came out at the beginning of September, which turned out to be perfect timing as most of the tourists had gone home for the year yet the weather was still warm enough for outdoor fun. Our first stop: Paris!
We took the TGV to Paris, which turned out to be incredibly convenient. From Lausanne to Paris, it is only 3h40 minutes, which makes the train significantly faster (and roughly the same price) as driving. Although we managed to do lots of other interesting things (such as a guided tour of the Louvre from our friend Olivier), our main purpose in visiting was to see some babies. Word on the street was that two new ones had just arrived at the home of our good friends (and former San Diegans) Laurent and Carole.
Above, you can see Carole with ... I think that's Louca,but it might be Elio. At the time, I definitely could have told you (the two twins looked totally different) but right now the memory is a little fuzzy. For sure, the guy lurking around the back of the photo is definitely Laurent.
If the last one was Louca, then this one with my Mom is definitely Elio, I think. Although, it certainly is possible that I accidentally picked two photos of the same baby. Well, at any rate, let the record show that we indeed visited Carole, Laurent, and their two beautiful babies, Elio and Louca.
After returning from Paris, we decided to rent a car and hit the road. Hoping to complete my goal of visiting every canton in Switzerland, we headed off in the direction of Ticino, which forms the vast bulk of the Italian part of Switzerland. To get there, instead of taking the autoroute and a tunnel or two, we decided to drive some more scenic mountain roads and ended up driving the entire length of the Valais and then crossing the Nufenen Pass into Ticino. Although the lower part of Valais is moderately populated, at least on the valley bottom, Upper Valais is really sparsely populated and basically just doted with tiny little villages. It is hard to do them justice, but each hamlet we passed looked like it could have been the inspiration for Heidi. One of the neatest aspects was the way that very old-fashioned, traditional, humble buildings were right next door to newer, nicer, or just much more expensive places.
For instance, this seemingly normal looking church (above), looked like this on the inside:
and it was located right across the street from this:
Just to answer the inevitable questions: yes, that weird two-staircase design was everywhere in this part of the country and no, I have no idea why. There are literally entire books that you can buy that discuss the minutiae of traditional barn design and the differences from canton to canton, unfortunately I never bought one of these (I'm kicking myself now), so I will never know why so many people felt the need to have two doors on opposite sides of the building, each with their own staircase. It's a secret to everybody.
Ticino, by the way, is beautiful. We decided to stay in Lugano, the capital city, as it is beautifully located on Lago di Lugano, a glacial lake on the border between Switzerland and Italy.
Along the border of Lago di Lugano are a number of small hills and mountains, many of which have little funiculars or cog trains that allow for incredible views with only the smallest effort
I don't think it is really evident in the picture above, but I want to note here that it was not obtained with the minimal effort. Upon climbing the steps to the roof of the little chapel on top of the mountain, I decided that I needed to try to capture the incredible view. After a couple of shots, I thought that I was going to have a tough time getting a good shot with the massive swarm of mosquitoes on the roof. Then, I realized that the mosquitoes were hardly a problem at all, and that it was the swarm of bees that would be the real challenge. Nonetheless, I ran right up next to the hive to take this picture, then bravely ran away, away.
As some of you may know, lately my Mom has been on an incredible fitness kick. Walking many miles every morning and eating nothing but raw meat she catches with her own hands, she has become a formidable athlete. Eager to put her new powers to use, she was hoping to go on some nice, pleasant hikes in Switzerland. Our first hike was from the top of Monte San Salvatore down to Lago di Lugano, from which we took the ferry back to Lugano proper. The forested mountain was really nice, but the real treat were the tiny villages we passed on our way down.
Although part of Switzerland, Ticino definitely has more of an Italian feel and these little towns really felt like they could have been in Tuscany somewhere. Also, at one point during our hike, we were sort of low on food and energy and we came across a fig tree growing near a church. Exactly two figs were hanging over the path, which we took as a sign that they had been left for us, and promptly devoured them. Best fig I have ever had.
Lulled into a false sense of confidence, my Mom was easily convinced to go on a much longer, more challenging hike. The idea was simple: we would leave our car in the tiny town of Spinas and hike to Chamanna Jenatsch, a mountain hut run by the Swiss Alpine Club. According to the website, it should take about four hours. Of course, as we approached Spinas, we found that we couldn't actually drive to it (only a bike/horse road goes through) and that we would have to park in Bever and hike an extra hour to Spinas. This was my first mistake. My second mistake was that I left the very detailed maps that I had printed out back in my apartment and thus, although there was effectively no possibility of getting lost with but a single trail, we never really knew how far along we were or how much more we had to go.
As we started hiking, we noticed that there were just tons and tons and tons of fresh raspberries along the trail. We saw a bunch of other hikers and honestly couldn't really figure out why there were so many berries left this late in the season -- shouldn't they have been eaten by now? These questions, of course, were nothing in the face of our hunger and we ended up eating handful after handful of the wild fruits. They were incredible. Of course, when I was telling a friend about this later, I was informed that the reason no one else was eating them was that wild berries can (possibly) be carriers of echinococcosis, or fox tapeworm. The idea is that the berries grow close enough to the ground that they might have traces of fox urine on them, and that urine might carry this tapeworm which, upon ingestion, travels directly to your liver and then starts growing into a baseball size lump over the course of many, many years. As a preventative measure upon finding this out, I put my liver through a rigorous and thorough toxification program to ensure that no tapeworm would possibly want to make a home inside. But I digress.
I don't think I can stress enough how much more difficult this hike turned out to be than I originally intended. Consulting a map on my return, I realized that to get to the cabin, my Mom and I hiked more than 10 miles and climbed more than 3000 feet. To be honest, near the end I was really starting to worry that it would just be too much and that we wouldn't finish while it was still light, but every time I turned around, my Mom was just kicking ass, plugging away at a constant pace, and swinging those crazy walking poles. Even as it got really steep and rough at the end, she pressed on and didn't once complain. It have never been more proud in my whole life.
The cabin was great -- good food, friendly people, warm rooms, and even running water -- and I think it gave my Mom a great introduction to the whole hut-to-hut hiking experience. Although I definitely prefer normal backpacking -- carrying a huge pack, sleeping outside, avoiding civilization -- there is something to be said for these huts and the way that they let you get out into the wilderness for a night without having to have anything more than a school backpack.
As far as my Mom was concerned, our return hike the next day was pretty much the highlight of the whole trip. Although we had heard them the previous day, it wasn't until then that we finally had our first marmot encounter.
Sure, they look a little like extremely obese squirrels, but they definitely have charm. Whistling, slouching around, generally being lazy -- they live the dream life. I was really happy that we had a chance to see one up close as, really, no mountain experience would be complete without one.
There was lots more to our trip, but only one major thing of note. Without any foresight or planning, while driving back through the Berner Oberland we stumbled across the Reichenbach Falls. Although I had definitely read about them in a guide book earlier, by this point I had basically forgotten that they were even in Switzerland, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a little sign on the side of the road and my Mom, mystery lover to the extreme, and I took a quick pause to check them out.
A cog train carries you up to the viewing platform where you can see the scene of the most dramatic of literary struggles. A star on the cliff gives you the exact location where the fight took place:
We only had a few minutes, so we didn't get to hike around the falls (which is supposed to be nice) or raid the gift shop, but I did get a photo of this plaque, which sits at the bottom of the falls.
Pretty cool.
It is kind of fitting that this will be my last "normal" post -- I'll probably write two "summary" posts eventually -- as the whole trip was one of the best I've ever been on in my life. We really saw a lot of the country, did a lot of cool things, and had a lot of fun. Here's to many more in the future
Thanks Mom!
